


Resilient

by mistrstank (dreamingdarkly)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Engineer Tony Stark, Gen, Kid Steve Rogers, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Zombie Apocalypse, single dad bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 04:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12645915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingdarkly/pseuds/mistrstank
Summary: Written for the prompt "Walking Dead" in the Winteriron Discord Key Exchange.The world has ended and the zombies have free reign. The Apocalypse is hard enough on your average person; try having only one arm and a toddler.Thankfully, there's Tony, who's determined to keep his people safe in a world out to kill them.





	Resilient

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_pointer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_pointer/gifts).



> I'm baaaaaackk! 
> 
> So I participated in the Winteriron Discord Key Exchange and my prompt was "Walking Dead". The romance is a little light in this, mostly for the fact I wanted to get some good world building in. I think I'd like to revisit this one day and write a little more in this universe.
> 
> Endless thank you and love to [Rae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/snnaaft) who made this fic something beautiful and amazing with her hard work! Thank you for the Beta you gorgeous person.

The street is filthy and eerily silent. A strong wind sends swirls of trash skipping down the road. The city is silent and empty, the only sign of life the stray cat making a slow trek along the top of a low wall. Bucky stands in the shadow of an awning and stares at the empty streets with a kind of resigned sadness. New York - ‘the city that never sleeps’, now a series of empty and breaking down buildings.

 

This is what an Apocalypse looks like, he supposes.

 

Bucky checks up and down the street one more time and then carefully steps out of the shadows. Steve is silent, wide-eyed and scared, where he is perched securely on Bucky’s hip. The toddler learned long ago never to make a sound unless they’re in a safe place. Bucky hates the fact that Steve is smart enough to know  _ nowhere  _ is safe. He can’t remember the last time he saw his baby boy smile, and that kills him. 

 

Bucky creeps slowly down the street, alert for danger and poised to run. He can’t fight, not with the only arm he has currently occupied holding his kid. He’ll be damned before he puts Stevie down, though. 

 

It’s smart to avoid the cities, where the most walkers have congregated, but Bucky is desperate. Stevie needs a new inhaler and they both need food. He creeps through the door of the first pharmacy they see, but the place is trashed. A quick, but necessarily thorough search doesn’t turn up the medicine he needs. He does find a few other useful things, which he nods to and Steve scoops up to stuff in the backpack hanging over Bucky’s shoulder. They’ve had to work out a system, since Bucky lost one arm, with Steve often acting as Bucky’s extra hands.

 

The next one they find is as useless as the first. Bucky keeps looking, tension winding in him tighter and tighter the longer they spend in this dead place. He makes a detour for food and finds three cans of soup sitting on an otherwise empty shelf. It won’t get them far, but he’ll make it stretch. Bucky is ready to give up, despite the way the soft wheeze of Stevie’s breath torments him, when he spots another Walgreens. He creeps up to the broken glass doorway, and reaches for the handle when he sees movement inside the darkened store. Bucky freezes and feels Steve go rigid in his hold. The slow, shuffling gait of the humanoid figure is enough to tell Bucky what he’s dealing with. He’s tempted to run - to forget about it, but even from the doorway he can see a box of inhalers emptied across the counter, as though someone had been rifling through them. 

 

Bucky hesitates.

  
“Papa…” Steve whispers, little hands clenching in the collar of Bucky’s jacket. Steve’s breath hitches on the next inhale, and Bucky’s decision is made for him.

 

Minutes that seem like hours later, Bucky finds himself the owner of  _ three  _ inhalers, all the exact type Steve needs. That will last them for months. Now he’s sprinting down the street with four Walkers shambling after him, but if they get out of this it’ll have been worth it. Steve is crying softly, his face pressed into Bucky’s neck, and he can’t spare the time to comfort him because they’re  _ gaining  _ on him. Exhaustion pulls at Bucky’s legs, his arm is  _ burning  _ with the strain, but he can’t stop - won’t stop. He skids around a corner, hears brick crumbling behind him as one of the Walkers bounces off the wall. He can hear their groaning and it sounds like they’re right behind him.

 

Fingers claw at his shoulder, pull at his clothes, and Steve screams.

 

Bucky trips.

 

His bad shoulder hits the ground first and pain explodes down his side. Bucky grits his teeth and rolls with the impact. He loses the backpack in the manoeuvre but maintains his hold on Steve, guarding the back of the child’s head with his palm. Bucky tries to scramble to his feet but he’s off-balance and awkward with his only arm occupied holding onto Steve. He feels the chill of their touch and Steve is screaming.

 

A walker falls upon him and Bucky screams. 

 

It takes a moment too long for him to realise that it isn’t moving. He cautiously turns his head and shoves at the corpse until it falls off of him. He’s still surrounded, but now that he’s able to pay  attention to his surroundings again, he hears a distant  _ ‘shtick!’  _ sound and he sees an honest to God  _ arrow  _ sprout from one of the walker’s foreheads. Bucky finds himself sitting in the middle of the street, clutching tight to Steve in his lap and reduced to a mere spectator as a showerrain of arrows takes out the walkers surrounding him. The last few stragglers shuffle about, groaning. A woman appears from seemingly nowhere and jams a knife up through the chin of one walker, then spins neatly on one leg to do the same to the other.

 

“Papa, papa, papa!” Steve wails and Bucky hushes him quietly, curling in around his son. The woman finishes off the last of the walkers and then casts an assessing look in his direction.   
  


“Shh, baby boy, we’re okay, I’ve got you, Stevie.” Bucky murmurs and cards gentle fingers through Steve’s hair. A blonde man slides gracefully down a fire escape, a bow held loosely in one hand. Bucky keeps a wary eye on his rescuers as the man goes about reclaiming his arrows from the corpses.

  
“Thank you,” Bucky eventually says when neither of them look as though they intend to start a conversation. The blonde looks up, a lightning quick grin flashing over his features.

  
“Never could resist a damsel.” The woman sighs and without taking her eyes off Bucky, reaches out to cuff the other man around the head.

  
“Are you contaminated?” She asks bluntly and Bucky flinches in spite of himself. “Came damn close, but no.” 

 

Steve sniffles and twists in Bucky’s grip to see the other two adults. His eyes go a little wide when he claps eyes on the woman and Bucky tries not to smile when his thumb slowly creeps into his mouth. The woman softens almost imperceptibly and takes a smooth step closer.

  
“Do not be frightened,  _ angel moy _ , we have somewhere safe for you.” Steve sniffles but he leans forward and even without being able to see his face, Bucky knows he’s doing  _ the eyes.  _   
  


“Papa says there’s no safe places no more.” He whispers, like he’s telling a secret and Bucky grimaces. It’s an awfully pessimistic thing to tell a child, but it’s an awfully pessimistic world. The man grins and steps forward to offer Bucky a hand.    
  


“Well, sure. Most of the world has gone to shi-” He cuts himself off at a glare from the woman. “Gone bad. But, Tony’s got a pretty good setup.” He finishes a little awkwardly. 

Bucky hesitates, but Steve looks so hopeful and he’s just so  _ tired.  _ He awkwardly accepts the help up and smiles when the woman grabs his backpack, slinging it over her own shoulder.   
  


“Come, we leave this place now.”

 

~x~

 

If someone had tried to tell him that this is how his day was going to turn out, Bucky wouldn’t have believed them. He’s comfortable and safe, sitting on the plush leather seat of an SUV. Steve is dozing in his lap, his breathing deep and easy in a way it hasn’t been for  _ months.  _ Clint and Natasha, as he’s come to know his rescuers, are in the front seats. Natasha drives, the motions smooth and practiced, while Clint keeps an eye on their surroundings and a hand on his bow. The silence is surprisingly comfortable, for all that they are strangers. Bucky tunes out most of the drive, leaning his head against the window and slipping into an exhausted doze. They’ve been running for weeks now and he’s learned the hard way that having a toddler and one arm in a world of zombies makes life really fucking hard. He’s lulled by the gentle motion of the car and the soft voiced conversation from the front seat.

 

“Welcome home!” Clint’s cheery voice draws Bucky out of his doze some time later. He opens gritty eyes and eagerly leans forward to see through the windshield. They’re somewhere upstate of New York. The road is somewhere behind them and they’re driving along a dirt track that ends in a field. It’s an admittedly idyllic location, with rich green grass and ringed by tall trees that sway gently.

  
“Uh, this is an empty field.” Bucky finally ventures and frowns when Clint starts laughing. He doesn’t sound surprised by Bucky’s confusion - in fact the asshole sounds delighted.

 

“Never gets old.” He hoots and leans away with practiced ease when Natasha reaches out to cuff him again.

 

Natasha reaches forward and presses a seemingly random sequence of numbers on the car dash. The car gives an almost imperceptible ‘click’ and the air in front of the SUV starts to  _ flicker.  _ Steve squirms out of Bucky’s lap and over to the other side of the car.

  
“Papa, look!” He bashes a hand against the window, bouncing with excitement. Bucky doesn’t turn to look because he can already see what’s got Steve so excited. There’s a wavering quality to the field in front of them, almost like looking at a mirage. As Bucky watches a doorway opens from seemingly nowhere and he can see a bustling camp in the middle of the field. Natasha drives the SUV through the opening and the science fiction nerd in Bucky is  _ freaking out;  _ it’s like stepping through a portal into a whole new world. 

 

He and Steve watch out the rear window as the gate swings closed behind them, settling smoothly into place. The compound, far too advanced to merely be called a  _ camp,  _ is ringed in by tall walls and the gate looks sturdy. Bucky eyes the bustling hub of activity as he climbs out of the SUV, scooping Steve out and settling him on one hip. The buildings look small but homey and he can see about 30 or so people.. The people look tired but happy. Steve is quivering in his grip, watching a group of children chase each other around with undisguised longing.

  
“Welcome to Resilient.” Natasha says, coming to stand beside him. Bucky stares and finds he has no words for what he’s seeing. He’s seen a few different groups of survivors since the walkers first appeared, but they’re never this organised, they’re never  _ safe.  _ The few camps he’s passed through with Steve have either been attacked by thieves or overrun by walkers.    
  


“How?” He finally settles on with a gesture at the wall behind them. Natasha smirks and lifts her shoulders in a dainty shrug. Clint comes up with Bucky’s bag slung over his shoulder along with several more in his hands. The bow is nowhere to be seen.

  
“Tony built it, you’d have to ask him how it works. All we know is that it keeps other humans from spottin’ us.”

 

“Welcome back!” A new voice says and Bucky turns to see a woman with red hair pulled into a neat bun and a warm smile. Steve blushes immediately and hides his face in Bucky’s neck; Bucky thinks he hears the woman stifle a squeal, but her face remains composed.

  
“Pepper, this is Bucky and his son Steve. We found him about to be walker lunch.”

 

Bucky throws a half hearted glare at Clint, gesturing with a nod down at Steve. The other man has the good sense to wince apologetically.

  
“Welcome, Bucky.” Pepper cuts over anything else Clint might have said. She pulls a tablet from seemingly nowhere and glances down at it. Bucky’s dying to know how they have running power here, but mostly he’s so desperate to be allowed to stay he’s too scared to say anything. Pepper taps at the screen a little and then smiles, “I think we can squeeze you in.” She says warmly.

  
“Thank you.” Bucky sags like a puppet with its strings cut, the relief making him giddy. 

 

Clint cheers and reaches out to jostle Bucky’s good shoulder. Natasha looks pleased but unsurprised.

  
“Are those the supplies May asked for?” Pepper’s attention flicks to Clint with barely a pause. The blonde man grins unabashedly. He hands Bucky’s bag off to Natasha and departs with a casual wave over one shoulder, carrying the rest of their pickings to who knows where.

  
“I should check in with Phil.” Natasha murmurs, as though that should mean anything to Bucky at all. Bucky accepts his bag from her with another murmured thanks. 

 

With both of his rescuers gone, Bucky finds himself alone with Pepper. “Well! Come with me and we’ll get you settled, shall we?” 

 

~x~

 

Bucky and Steve settle quickly into Resilient. The people are surprisingly welcoming to strays - it doesn’t hurt that most of the women in the camp seem to want to adopt Steve. Bucky had to find a corner to quietly weep into the first time he had to loosen Steve’s belt; his baby boy is putting on weight he couldn’t afford to lose in the first place. Steve’s cheeks are a healthy pink and his face is slowly starting to round out. Bucky sleeps now - something he’d almost forgotten in all their years on the run. He picks up odd jobs around Resilient - it’s hard going with only one arm, but he’s adapted fairly well.

 

He meets the Carters and their daughter, Peggy, who he’s pretty sure Steve is half in love with. He meets Bruce - an actual  _ doctor  _ \- and his nurse, Betty. They would probably be his favourite people for their effect on Steve alone, if it weren’t for Tony.

 

Tony, a billionaire genius turned grease monkey for a town of survivors. The man who built them a home and kept them safe with his brilliant mind and his talented hands. Resilient runs on Arc Reactors, something Bucky learned on his second day. But it’s more than that, even. Tony is...he’s beautiful.

 

The dining building is as busy as always when Bucky steps in, but it’s an ordered kind of chaos. Steve sticks close to his leg as they weave through the people - he’s come so far since they’ve been here, but he’s still shy around big groups of people.

  
“Hey, Peter.” Bucky calls as he gets closer to the teen running the servery. He can hear May in the back, ruling over her kitchen with a dainty iron fist and the thought makes him smile. Peter grins immediately and holds down a fist for Steve to bump, which the toddler solemnly does.

  
“Hey guys! You here for lunch?” He reaches for a couple of trays, but pauses when Bucky shakes his head.

  
“We’re taking lunch to Tony!” Steve pipes up, standing on his tip toes so he can peek over the counter. Bucky tries to ignore the way his ears flush, but he must not do a good job if the way Peter’s grin widens is any indication. The kid refrains from comment, however. He disappears into the back and May’s yelling goes quiet for a moment. A short time later Peter steps back out and his grin is pure mischief now. He holds up a  _ picnic basket,  _ of all things and Bucky groans audibly.

  
“Aunt May says Tony needs to take a break.” He says solemnly and Bucky is going to kill the kid, he is. He doesn’t care what May thinks, he’s not scared of her. Steve, because he’s oblivious, squeals with joy and holds his hands out for the basket.   
  


“Careful, big guy, it’s a little heavy.” Peter warns, lowering it obligingly.   
  


“I c’n  _ do it! _ ” Steve says fiercely, even as he staggers under the weight. Bucky knows better than to offer to take it, though.

 

Sure enough, Steve gets his little arms wrapped around the oversized basket and promptly marches for the door. Bucky follows him, pausing only long enough to mouth ‘you’re dead’ at Parker’s unrepentantly grinning face.

 

He trails after his son, trying not to laugh at the way Steve can barely see over the top of the basket he’s so insistent on carrying. The workshop is its usual hive of activity when they get there, with Tony in the centre of the chaos. He’s at least dressed cleanly today, in jeans that are more denim than holes and a tank top that’s still its original colour. He looks up with a grin at their approach and the warmth in his whiskey eyes is enough to kindle an answering one in Bucky’s stomach.

  
“Tony!” Steve announces with all of the aplomb his four years can muster. “We’re goin’ on a picnic!” 

  
“Is that right, little dude?” Tony’s expression melts into something soft and warm. He puts his tools down and leans down to scoop Steve up, basket and all. It’s a mark of Steve’s affection for the engineer that not only does he allow the touch, but he actively curls into Tony’s chest. Bucky’s heart twists in his chest, arrested as he is by the sight of his crush standing there holding his son like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

  
“Picnic, Buckaboo?” Tony’s eyes are on him now and Bucky’s tongue feels heavy in his mouth. He can’t move and Steve is starting to look impatient, glancing back and forth between them. He stretches up and whispers something into Tony’s ear, something Bucky is too far away to hear. The genius’ eyes widen and then a moment he bursts into laughter.

  
“Where did you hear  _ that,  _ munchkin? No, don’t answer, I don’t really want to know who’s been burning those adorable little ears.” Steve opens his mouth, no doubt to give Tony a piece of his mind for daring to call him cute, but Tony stops that with a swift kiss to his forehead. “Wait outside for me, munchkin? Your papa and I will be there in a minute.”

 

Bucky expects Steve to argue, but instead the little shit beams like Tony’s given him a gift and all but  _ runs  _ from the room. In the silence afterward, Bucky stands awkwardly as Tony slowly walks closer. The shorter man pauses in front of him for a moment and his smile is both adorable and oddly shy.

  
“Wh-what did Stevie say?” Bucky manages to choke out. Mirth sparks in Tony’s eyes, but he shakes his head.

  
“Not telling,” He whispers, and Bucky really would complain, but he’s distracted at the touch of a work roughened hand curling shyly into his own. He links his fingers through Tony’s in a daze, totally caught in the other man’s warm eyes. “I will tell you it involved something like this.” Tony whispers and leans up to press their mouths together.

 

Bucky groans, deep and heartfelt, letting go of Tony’s hand only to slide his arm around the other man’s waist and haul him in closer. His eyes close and he loses himself to the kiss, which starts out tentative but quickly turns hot and demanding. 

 

“Hey, Steve, is Tony inside?” Bucky distantly hears Rhodey’s voice say, but he can’t bring himself to step away.

  
“He’s sucking Papa’s face.” Steve answers a moment later, and Bucky pulls back from the kiss to press his face into Tony’s shoulder.

  
“Oh, my god.” He says through his laughter and the sound of Rhodey sputtering outside. Tony presses a kiss to his neck and Bucky can feel the genius grin against his skin.

  
“Never a dull moment.” He says with another little laugh, and Bucky can’t disagree.

 

He’s home, though, and he likes it just the way it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Suggestions? Inarticulate screaming? Leave me a comment, or come scream at me on [Tumblr!](http://www.tumblr.com/mistrstank)


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